Eritrea in 2010

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Bowing to pressure from abroad, Eritrea took tentative steps in 2010 toward making peace with its neighbours and sought to improve its relations with the wider African and international community. Eritrean Pres. Isaias Afwerki’s regime failed, however, to find solutions for a list of deep political, economic, and social problems that afflicted the small country.

Early in the year African and Western countries accused Eritrea of having continued to foment trouble in the Horn of Africa by escalating its border disputes with neighbours Djibouti and Ethiopia, as well as by supporting an antigovernment insurgency in Somalia. In March the EU imposed military and economic sanctions on Eritrea. The action, which included an arms embargo and travel restrictions, was similar to sanctions with which the UN punished Eritrea in late 2009 at the request of the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development.

Three months after imposition of the EU sanctions, President Afwerki’s government pledged to make peace with Djibouti in a pact brokered by the Qatari government. The peace deal, confirmed by the UN in June, included Eritrea’s agreement to withdraw troops from a contested border area. The UN also stated that Eritrea had shown a willingness to recognize the transitional government in Somalia and to help bring peace to that war-torn country.

The border dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti dated to 2008, when troops from the countries fought at their common border on the shores of the Red Sea. The clash, in which six Djibouti soldiers died, had erupted after Eritrea sent troops to occupy contested frontier areas then under Djibouti control.

While Afwerki’s government tried to improve Eritrea’s international relations, its domestic agenda in 2010 remained largely unchanged from past years. The regime continued to pursue a poor model of command economics, to spend heavily on defense, and to crack down on political dissent. Those actions contributed to Eritrea’s having retained its distinction as one of the world’s most difficult countries in which to do business. It also was viewed as a country that was likely to become a failed state.

In efforts to help alleviate poverty in Eritrea, the African Development Fund in April agreed to provide the country with a $20 million grant for higher-education development. The International Fund for Agricultural Development in September also extended Eritrea a $12.6 million grant to help the country expand its fishing sector.